Gristleized

On Tuesday, April 28, 2009, Throbbing Gristle played their third show in New York City at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple.

The opening band, Emeralds, was finishing their set when I arrived, so I navigated through the crowd to the bar to get a beer. The Masonic Temple is in my neighborhood, so I'm predisposed to like the venue, but I was annoyed to learn that in order to buy a beer, I would have to go to yet another table to buy a drink ticket, and then I would have to fight my way back to the bar to purchase a beverage with said ticket. "I know," said the bartender, "It's really annoying." At the end of the obstacle course, I was rewarded with a six-dollar can of Zywiec lager - but it was a big can.

I decided to explore the balcony, where I found a spot to stand that afforded a decent view of the stage and the venue's columns and art noveau ornamentation. Then the house lights came on, and Throbbing Gristle took the stage.

Because the house lights were on, I found myself watching the crowd as much as I watched the band. At first, it seemed that the audience was fairly well-behaved, and I wondered whether people in general tend to be more polite when the lights are on. I noticed one couple dancing near the front of the crowd: a tall, thin man and a petite blond woman. They were the only people dancing as if no one could see them. After the first song, the couple managed to maneuver themselves into the center of the crowd, where they continued to dance with reckless abandon, the man lifting his arms up high. I was glad I wasn't standing behind them. As the set continued, the music became more intense and aggressive, and Arms-Up started trying to push up closer to the front. For the first time, the crowd started to become agitated - I wondered if this was how mosh pits started. Arms-Up was bouncing around like a pinball, he'd push forward and get pushed back, until finally a man turned around and punched him in the face. One, two, three times fast. I inhaled, startled, and looked around to see if anyone else had seen it. If anyone around me had noticed, they weren't showing it. Then it was over, just like that, and Arms-Up had bounced back to the blond woman, she was touching his face as he sagged and slumped. I watched from the balcony, feeling sick, my empty beer can vibrating in my hand.

Maybe I didn't see what I thought I saw. Maybe it's not that big a deal for most people if someone who is being disruptive gets their face punched in. In any case, Arms-Up was subdued for a few minutes, and just when it seemed that he had recovered, the venue's security personnel came into the crowd (everyone around him turned like synchronized swimmers to point him out to the bouncers) and dragged him away. I don't know what happened to the other guy.

The next song was dedicated to "the mentally ill who couldn't be with us tonight," and there wasn't any more bad behavior from the audience. We had the privilege of hearing a new piece, "Gristleizer," which used the Gristleizer effect unit. "Gristleizer" sounded like: Cicadas, wind whistling through bare branches, underwater roar, the laquer crack of billiard balls striking one another, and a howling constant tone ascending and descending in pitch. All of these sounds occuring in independent rhythmic patterns of variable tempo, the amplitude increasing until my ribcage was rattling.

When people really started dancing, they weren't trying to look cool or sexy. They shuddered and flailed ecstatically, and by the end of the final song, everyone is moving. Genesis P-Orridge moved like a puppet in citrus colors (lemon, tangerine, blood orange), the crowd shook, I tapped my foot. The show ended. There was no encore, though the crowd clapped and stomped until the band came out and took a bow together. I went out into the sticky Brooklyn night with stinging hands and a singing head.